Talk:Pearl Poet
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But WHY is he called The Pearl Poet? If anyone knows...I'd like to know.
- Literary historians agree that the same person wrote Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness. However, they do not his or her name, or any thing else about him. When refering to the authorof these pieces, it is easier to write "The Pearl Poet" than to write "The author of Pearl". Dsmdgold 03:23, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)
He is also called the Pearl Poet because each of the poems features pearls in some form, and he talks a lot about purity (defined very broadly). I've edited to reflect this.Evkharper (talk) 02:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
It would be great if this article discussed his unique style and gave some of the specifics that unite the poems. He's at least as skillful a poet as Chaucer, and some prefer him, so, despite not knowing any specifics of his biography, we can talk about his dialect (which is unusually not far from Chaucer's) and the dates of composition, and the manuscript details of Cotton Nero a x, and his prosody. Geogre 20:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
It is possible that we have a hint in the use of Old Norse that this is the child of an Earl - i.e. (in a hybrid of Welsh and the Norse derived English title) ap Earl - though, this is more likely to be the object of the poem rather than its author. Pearls were so precious that their ownership for display was restricted to the high nobility, though commoners might harvest them and merchants exchange them. It seems unlikely, therefore, that anyone but a noble would know or care much about them as objects of beauty.
210.50.17.162 08:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC) Ian Ison
I'm not sure I understand this comment. 'Pearl' refers to the human subject of the poem 'Pearl', which also references a large number of other gems which would not have been in common use. The imagery of the poem draws heavily from the book of Revelation in the Bible, which describes the twelve gates being made of pearls. In any case, 'Earl' is not Old Norse - which would be Jarl - but Old English 'eorl'. Martin Turner 00:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] a woman?
Could the Pearl Poet have been a woman? The poet was obviously Christian. We nothing of this mysterious person except by their poems. And the poet is not remembered to this day. The tone of Sir Gawain sounds distinctly female. All these reasons seem to have me convinced that the poet was an educated woman who could not be properly accredited for her work. What do the rest of you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Working for Him (talk • contribs) 21:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
- I haven't seen any evidence or research pointing that way. The problem is that the other three, less famous works are not distinctly female at all. They are religious in nature, possibly written by a religious figure. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying that I haven't seen any research suggesting that the author was female. Wrad 21:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Title of the article
To revert to the question and answer of 2005 -
a. The anonymous author of a poem is not uncommonly known as 'the [x] poet', where [x] is the title of the poem.
b. More interestingly, why is this article lodged under the title 'Pearl poet? The article itself makes it clear that the author of Pearl is commonly thought to be the author of Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience and Purity (or Cleanliness). In my circles, (s)he is commonly referred to as 'the Gawain poet' rather than 'the Pearl poet'; and this article seems to approach agreement with this, in that there are the same number of mentions of 'Gawain poet' and 'Pearl poet'. One would expect the number using the article heading to outnumber the cross references. I suggest that the article be moved to 'Gawain poet', and that this become the link. I'll leave it to a more experienced Wikipedian to do the moving because of any knock-on effects or losses I might cause.
MacAuslan 15:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
- The split between "Gawain Poet" and "Pearl Poet" is actually about fifty/fifty as far as I've seen. If you type in "Gawain Poet" it will redirect here. Neither one is really more correct than the other, and pearl poet is kind of rooted into wikipedia now. I'm not sure what part a means, though. Could you clarify? Wrad 19:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
